Tangled in Tinsel
by Anne-Marie
Summary: With the help of some small goblins Jareth discovers the Christmas spirit and the joys of tinsel! Totally a small little bit of fun holiday fluff.


Rustle, rustle, thump, smash.  
  
Jareth tapped his foot impaitently against the side of his throne, waiting for the goblin that was making so much noise to appear.  
  
Thump, rustle, thump, rustle.  
  
"No! Sniff, you are pulling it the wrong way." "Oh right, Scratch."  
  
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.  
  
Jareth sat up, it was a cold day in hell when the goblins organized themselves. It was quiet. The Goblin King raised a suspiscious eyebrow. He waited a few minutes, still the silence remained. He decided to take matters into his own hands. Jareth walked to where he had last heard the strange sounds. Turning down the corridor and walking down the steps he came to one of the many spare ballrooms his castle held.  
  
A warm glow was spilling out under the door, Jareth cracked the door open, peaking into the room. Several of the smaller goblins were rushing around a tree(that was three times their size), trying to prop it up straight. An Evergreen tree.  
  
"Where in the Underground did they get that?" Jareth muttered to himself. He continued to watch his subjects.  
  
"Move it to the left Scratch. No wait, hold on, alright now tape it down." Jareth supressed a laugh, they were trying to tape the tree in place? That would never work.  
  
"Sniff, are you sure this is how it is done? It seems like way too much trouble for one day."  
  
"Its what the book says." Sniff waved a small child's book at Scratch. Scratch being distracted let go of his end of the tree, causing it to topple over on the other two goblins that were holding it up.  
  
"Mmmmphhnnnrrrmmpphh."could be heard from under the shrubbery.  
  
"Oh! Hold on Nob!  
  
"Hold on Nod!" Sniff and Scratch ran forward and rolled the tree over, the tape on the bottom of the trunk stuck to Nob and rolled the small goblin with it.  
  
"Aiiieeee!"  
  
"Grab my hands Nob," Sniff yanked Nob towards her, with a 'rriiip' Nob went flying. Sniff and Nob were thrown in a heap, trying to stand up Sniff found herself taped to Nob, tail to tail. Both goblins tried to walk away and only managed to fall down again. Scratch and Nod were rolling with laughter by this point.  
  
"Sniff," laugh, "looks like you are in a sticky situation,"Scratch pointed and continued to laugh at his own joke. Sniff crossed her arms and glared at her brother through her wispy brown hair.  
  
Jareth decided it was time for him to make an entrance. He cleared his throat and pushed the door open all of the way. Standing there, in the dark hallway, towering over his subjects the laughter halted as soon as they saw who stood in the door.  
  
"Your Majesty," Scratch and Nod were able to bow, Sniff and Nob were only able to look up at him pitifully from the floor.  
  
"What exactly were you trying to accomplish here?" he put his hand on his hip and cocked his head to the side as he looked at his small subjects.  
  
Sniff cleared her throat and crawled her way over to her book, much to Nob's dismay as he was dragged backwards over the cold stone floor.  
  
"We were making Christmas, Highness. Like in this book." she held the book in question out to Jareth. He took it in his gloved hands and flipped through the pages, keeping his face passive. It was a children's book, most likely left here by one of the wished-aways. It did not have any words, only illustrations. It showed a family putting up a tree, decorating it and exchanging presents. Unfortuneatly for the goblins it didn't come with an instruction manuel on how to properly erect a tree.  
  
"I see," Jareth bent down, put the book on the floor and seperated Sniff and Nob. Both conspicuously rubbed their tails, where the tape had been. "Well, this is not to be stood for," he stood up. The goblins cowered. "Of course not Highness, we will take it away now," Nod volunteered.  
  
"Take it away?" Jareth smiled. "Why? You just need someone a bit taller to put it up properly. Now, Sniff I beleive if you go into the closet behind my throne there are several boxes of decorations for such occasions. Including something we are in dire need of, a tree stand." Jareth shooed the small goblin out the door. And so it was that when Hoggle came looking for Jareth a few hours later, to let him see the progress reports on the new Captain of the Royal Guard, he found the monarch sitting cross legged under an evergreen, in the middle of one of the ballrooms, decorated in tinsel, crystal balls and popcorn. If that wasn't enough, the tinsel had also managed to sneak into Jareth's hair, giving him a very impish look. What really floored Hoggle though, was the four goblins that were leaning on Jareth or sitting on his lap as he read 'A Christmas Carol' to them. Hoggle looked up, hoping to come with an answer, instead his face turned red and he quickly looked back down, what was mistletoe doing there. It was too late though, Sniff had seen him, she bounced up from Jareth's lap and ran over to Hoggle, kissing him on the nose she beamed. "Merry Christmas Hoggle!" "Yes, indeed, Merry Christmas Hoggle," Jareth would store the look on the dwarf's face away for something to chuckle over on rainy days. It was absolutely priceless.  
  
Santa chuckled as he looked away from his magic snow globe. "Finally got that old coot! You owe me five dollars Rudolf." "Fine, fine." The reindeer grumbled and hooved over the amount in question. "How did you do it? I thought for sure it was impossible to get the Goblin King to celebrate Christmas." "Well, it wasn't too hard to convince the Captain of the Royal Gaurd to let me leave a tree out in the open and a children's book." "Did you bribe him with Holiday Elf Chocolate?" "There are some trade secrets I can't reveal." Santa turned his back to Rudolf. "You did! Ha! So you aren't above bribery. Here I thought everything had to be earned for you. Being good and nice and not naughty and bad." "He earned it. He just hasn't been educated on some of the finer points of human holidays. Besides, does it matter, I got Jareth to celebrate Christmas. The Grinch was a peice of cake compared to him." "Yeah, I remember the year you tried to get him to live out Frosty the SnowMan, too bad it is too warm in the Labyrinth for snow. Frosty couldn't even get out the first verse of his song before he was a puddle." "Yes...and then the goblins proceeded to make him into a mud slide...poor old chap, still hasn't forgiven me for that one." Santa stood up and grabbed his magic snow globe and gave it a shake, wiping the image of Jareth and his goblins from its depth, to be replaced by a placid village scene.  
  
Jareth was more than a little surprised to find it snowing when he got up from reading to his goblins. He smiled though and walked to his room, sipping warm eggnog. "Merry Christmas." 


End file.
